QAR is Govt’s abiding failure say advisers
The Government’s failure to expedite the implementation of the key recommendations of the Quality of Advice Review (QAR) have cost in dearly in the eyes of the financial advice community.
A Financial Newswire survey has confirmed that the QAR recommendations have garnered widespread support amongst financial advisers and there is now substantial disappointment that they will not be delivered in full before next year’s Federal Election.
Importantly, however, the survey also confirmed that the Government has little lose from its slow approach, with two-thirds of respondents indicating that they believe the Liberal/National Party (LNP) will wrest power from the Albanese Government at the election reflecting the outcome of earlier survey showing a strong adviser preference for the Coalition parties.
Asked to outline their concerns, financial adviser respondents to the Financial Newswire survey made clear that translating the QAR recommendations into day-to-day cost savings were their central concern.
“The QAR not being delivered in the way it was intended and fast enough is causing costs to increase to clients and advisers with no benefits gained,” one respondent said.
“Lots was promised, nothing delivered. Clients have been impacted by Jones’ incompetence and delaying tactics to benefit his union funds mates. QAR should be about clients not product providers,” another respondent said.
“QAR is strongly required to remove useless red tape within this industry,” said a respondent, while another described the Government’s approach to the QAR implementation as a “debacle”.
“ALP have been dreadful with nearly everything they’ve done in this space since taking office. Lots of promises and almost nothing to show for it. Since the election, there is little positive impact and there are many examples where things are now worse for advisers,” an adviser said.
“The QAR has become a debacle with regard to advice fees from super and that needs to be sorted immediately. This is genuinely worrying.”
“The CSLR is another greatest hits moment from Jones which an absolute joke. Punishing good advisers retrospectively, despite us being promised it wouldn’t. Absolutely disgusting. The fact the Minister doesn’t even return enquiries about this is shocking.”
“QAR will provide much needed relieve to the overbearing SoA process and the provision of financial advice in general. The CSLR is clearly fundamentally unsound. I do not believe the remaining factors will have a material impact on the provision of advice as we currently know it,” an adviser said.
If QAR was implemented in full, it would solve about 25% of the bad regulation issues preventing consumers from accessing affordable professional advice.
Jones’ deliberate delaying and pandering to his union masters on QAR is unforgivable. Not just because it prevents consumers from benefiting from QAR, but because it has become the sole focus of regulatory improvement, and is holding up any action on the other 75% of problems.
It’s straight up corruption by Jones. He is nothing but a puppet for his paymasters. A lamentable situation for this great country to have people the calibre of Stephen Jones in positions of power. He reminds me of the dodgy guy dodging his debts. Lots of promises but the money never materialises.
The more this goes on, the more I realise that things are never going to get better regardless of who’s in power.
I used to be optimistic about the future, now the best I hope for is that it doesn’t get worse!
Sadly too true.
Both the LNP and ALP along with the Canberra bubble Red Tape mania bureaucrats of ASIC, AFCA, FARSEA and APRA have ALL failed Australians with the Kill Real Adviser mentality.
The Canberra swamp needs a big clean out.
Now I best go back to work to try to fund some hope of my kids ever buying a house in Australia.
How our country with abundant land v population, abundant energy and building resources has the Worlds Worst overall housing affordability just proves how useless our Govts are.
For all the reasons you mention, I’ll be voting Greens at the next election. Labor and LNP have no serious intention of fixing either financial advice regulation or the housing crisis. Greens have no policies I’m aware of in relation to advice regulation, but they are putting together a strong policy package in relation to housing.
Voting Green won’t put them in government, but if enough of us do so it will be a dramatic wake up call to both major parties that they need to be more responsive to the needs of all citizens, not just vested interest groups.
Ahh…. err….. Um….
I’d urge you to read the Greens submission to the Royal Commission in 2018.
I think you might get a bit of a shock….
I went back and re-read it. It’s not totally crap as I remember it being. It’s pro-consumer and spends a lot of time talking about banking.
I think I might have confused it with one of the other submissions. 2018 was a while ago.
That said, I’ll be interested to see how the Greens vote with regard to the current Bill before the Senate and other things.
For me, the Greens are cringe. Government to fix and be involved with everything. Housing policy is terrible… Rent caps? C’mon.
It’s back to the LNP for me.
Dear fellow advisers, Here is a video clip to not only give you a small giggle but to perfectly encapsulate the situation in which we find ourselves. It is the inimitable George Carlin talking about education in America but every word applies to the current situation of advisers and things like Jones looking after his ‘owners’. Check out this link, very much worth your time, only a few minutes . . . https://youtu.be/MuO-2jkXP8Q?si=zKk73rUAzGm7Hqzu
Peter
Mr Carlin is spot on
We advisers have no control over anything. When it all boils down, ALL political parties bow & scrape for political donations and we are the collateral damage. Care factor about us – NIL
But it might even be worse: Jane Hume for Jones.
And Peter we just don’t have the lobby to push back. As I have suggested in other post’s we have to either accept our dismal position and get on with it or go do something else – no one will save us.
Doesn’t atter what we think or who threaten to vote for or not, because it was clear early on in the piece that Jones, ASIC, APRA, ISA, Media etc., don’t care, and don’t see FP as part of the solution to advice gap and don’t see us as a threat with 15,997 advisor (that’s right we continue to drop) we have no lobbying power. Accept what is plain to see and run your business on that basis or go do something else.
The sooner we start paying ASIC officials $200K to turn up to speak at an all-expenses paid industry event the sooner we’ll all be better off. The only certainty is legislation is not being written on what’s good for Australians or what makes good sense, or even what reduces red tape for small and large businesses. So it appears the only certainty is legislation is being written based on who pays who, the most.
The biggest problem impacting advisers is they’re pretty lazy in that they very incorrectly think their licensee or the FAAA will advocacte for them.
15,000 advisers each have say 100 clients (couples) that’s 3 million votes and the best thing that’s happened to advisers in the last 20 years is the ability to witness a stat dec.and now they’re being replaced by backpackers being called Qualified Advisers. Like go figure that out.